


prometheus

by dykeugou (ofvulcan)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Extended Metaphors, Identity Issues, Implied Sexual Content, Insecurity, M/M, Post-Canon, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, overuse of mythological and biblical imagery, the whole thing is one big metaphor honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29304120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofvulcan/pseuds/dykeugou
Summary: His is a love not built for humans. It is precise and calculated, made of ice and steel; unyielding behind a mask.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	prometheus

**Author's Note:**

> cw for blood pertaining to a sports related injury, as well as some big time yuri identity issues. he's not exactly okay at the end, but he's going to be <3
> 
> inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/solisolsoli/status/1357398251432013825) photoset.
> 
> I wrote this in a haze over two caffeine-fueled nights at 4 a.m., so any and all mistakes are very much my own!

Sometimes, his face is not his face. 

It's plastered on posters and advertisements, Photoshop-distorted and airbrushed into a porcelain mask. Blown up to twenty times its size and pasted on the side of the Megasport when they hold the 2020 Rostelecom Cup in Moscow, so big that the real thing pales in comparison. 

But it's wrong. It's not his face. It's what everyone sees, but it's not _him_ , and no one seems to realize that a changeling is wearing his name.

 _The prodigy_ , they call it - his face that's not his face - and maybe that's good enough for him, for a time. He lives in the prodigy until it becomes as much his name as any other, enough to turn his head when it's whispered in a crowd. The prodigy basks in the saccharine smiles of reporters, and thrives on headlines, and keens beneath the lips of all of the men who only want to fuck him with the gold medal on. 

It's not him, but he can almost pretend it could be. 

He's grown so small under the weight of it, just a dot in a sea of white ice, glinting with gold; if that titan swallowed him whole, would anyone even notice at all? 

Otabek would, he thinks. He noticed his soldier eyes, back when he was still a person and not an idea, a lifetime ago; Otabek notices when he starts to pop his quads more often than not, when he comes to train in Saint Petersburg, and the crush of the gold makes it harder and harder for him to lift himself off of the ice. Otabek notices, with his dark eyes, like molten rock that flickers through him and sets him ablaze. 

He wonders, when Otabek looks into _his_ eyes, if he sees anything but endless, verdant ice. 

He wonders what his life would be like without skating - without the ache in his ankles, the force of landing with seven times his weight on the edge of a razor; the hiss of the ice and the hush of the crowd. It's all he's ever had; what would it feel like to have it taken? Would he still be the face that's not his face? Will that be the only thing they'll ever see? 

_The prodigy falls from grace_ \- a modern Prometheus, the wound in his side open and bared for all to see on the cover of a magazine. 

He's two weeks shy of twenty when he realizes he can't do a Biellmann spin anymore. 

It starts the same as any other - he grabs the blade behind his body, pulls it up, fights the stretch and the centripetal force. But when it slips out of his grasp, comes careening down with a crash that aches of finality, he knows: his body, the only anchor to what little self he has left, is just dirty clothes, waiting to be tossed away. 

He doesn't even feel it. Otabek is by his side, and his blue jacket is turning maroon, and he's beating with the pulse of something so fragile, and so scared, and so _human_ , that for a moment the prodigy has to take a step back and let him bask in it.

It's only then, in the fire of Otabek's warmth, that he registers the gushing flow from his palm and wrist, his and Otabek's hands slick and coated crimson. A baptism of blood, before the end of the world. 

_Oh_ , he thinks as he drops to his knees. Red splashes across the ice, arterializing out to feed the only life he's ever known. 

_This is what it feels like._

It's _not_ the end, of course - he's burdened with foresight and knows this is only the beginning. He needs seven stitches to close the wound, even and clean, a thin roadmap that routes between his fingers to an inch below his wrist. They tell him that he's lucky, that he could've lost a finger, or movement in the whole hand, or worse. 

He just nods as his arms are chained above the cloud-line in the Caucasus, eagles circling overhead. 

He tries for a graceful fall, but he was never fated for a sudden, merciful death. He knows his will come at the end of torn ligaments, and broken knees, pecking beaks that strip him away piece by piece by piece. 

He takes the gold at Worlds in Stockholm, and knows with certainty that it's the last time he ever will. 

When the season ends, and they fall together as he always knew they would since the sunset in Park Güell, Otabek doesn't mention the medal. 

It's almost a shame: Otabek's fire would look beautiful dancing along the polished metal. It's enrapturing enough when it licks its flames across his chest, scorches embers into his thighs and neck, breathes smoky words against his ear. The room is hot with it, sweat and panting breaths; sparks fly beneath Otabek's fingertips, he lets himself be consumed.

In the low light of the afterglow, he looks into Otabek's molten eyes above him, touches his face with his hand, and he's struck with the impossible vulnerability of it. The humanity of what's transpired between them, skin to skin, Otabek's stunning light and his own dwindling immortality. 

He knows now, when Otabek looks into his eyes, he sees _him_.

It's staggering.

For a moment, he imagines his wound opening and blood spilling out of his palm, dripping down and coating his face in as good a mask as any, so that when Otabek kisses him, he's protected under a film of copper. It's not gold, but it'll do; he's suddenly slick and nauseous with how much he _craves_ the separation, because how could something so perfect want _this_ , the small, raw creature tucked in the shadow of his accomplishments?

But then Otabek is leaning down into him, and his mouth doesn't taste like blood, it tastes like pomegranates, bursting like spring under his tongue. He understands now why Persephone gave up everything for just a taste of _this_. 

Otabek exhales his name like a prayer, two syllables he's listen to a million times before, but never _heard_ , and that's all it takes to break him.

His is a love not built for humans. It is precise and calculated, made of ice and steel; unyielding behind a mask.

But when Otabek flips him over, burning tongue tracing every notch in his spine, fingers splayed between his ribs to hold his wounds together as he lays his love down soft and sweet, he _wants_ to give. He wants, _longs_ to break the mask, to let Otabek melt away the prodigy, and the face that's not his face; to carve out what remains of his humanity in this unrelenting block of marble that's caged him for so long.

Otabek frees him from his chains, and Yuri _soars_.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are *always* appreciated <3
> 
> come hang out with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/dykeugouu) and [tumblr](https://dykeugou.tumblr.com/%22)!!


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